Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings: Give Seitan A Chance

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Give Seitan A Chance

I decided to give seitan another try last night. Brett and I had a bad experience with seitan earlier this year, which gave me a bad impression of this “wheat meat”. We had attempted to make BBQ Seitan sandwiches, and tried out a new BBQ sauce, which was perhaps the most disgusting stuff I’ve ever had. After that experience, I decided I didn’t like seitan. Well, while browsing all the many food blogs out there, I kept coming across seitan recipes, so I decided to give it a second chance. When prepared properly, it isn't too bad, just like tofu. Many people don’t like tofu because they have had poorly done tofu dishes - same applies to seitan and probably most anything else.

So I went for a seitan fajita and put a little broccoli and cauliflower in it, along with the more traditional fajita veggies. This might sound odd, but I had a veggie fajita done that way when I was in Illinois recently and it was good. I also marinated the seitan overnight to allow the flavors to really soak in, but it would probably be fine just to marinate it for an hour or so as well. And I didn't have any of those small tortillas, so I used regular sized flour tortillas. I served the fajitas with a basic guacamole and blue corn tortilla chips.















Seitan Fajita Wraps

Basic Fajita Marinade:
juice of 1/2 a lime
1-2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. white vinegar
1 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. shoyu
dash cumin
dash cayenne pepper
dash chili powder
pinch salt
pinch sugar

Mix all ingredients.

Pour over thinly sliced seitan and marinate overnight.

Simple Guacamole
1 ripe avocado
juice of half a lime
1 clove garlic, minced
cumin (to taste)
cayenne (to taste)
salt (to taste)

Seitan Fajitas:
marinated seitan strips
thin strips of bell pepper
thin strips of onion
thin strips of fresh jalapeno (optional)
broccoli florets
cauliflower florets
olive oil
flour tortillas
tofu sour cream
salsa
guacamole

Heat olive oil in skillet. Add bell pepper, onion and jalapeno and sautee for a few minutes. Add broccoli, and cauliflower. Cook for a few more minutes until heated through and veggies are done to your liking.

In a seperate pan, heat oil and fry seitan strips for a few minutes.

Heat up tortillas and layer with veggies, seitan, tofu sour cream, guacamole and salsa.

Roll up like a burrito, and if desired, brown on all sides in a skillet.

That about does it!

3 comments:

Lindsay (Happy Herbivore) said...

seitan is a funky food. The first time I had it was in a restaurant. Then I came home and made seitan - well I tried - and it was BAD. After another trip to the restaurant I decided to make Bryanna's Beefy Seitan (which gets many a praises in the vegan blog world) and while its OKAY I'm still not too hot for it. Finally I bought a package of pre-made seitan at the store and while I'd never eat it alone, its always tasty in other foods - and your fajitas look awesome! (I usually make mine with peppers but seitan could improve it!)

Ruby Red said...

Weird, the first seitan I had was gross as well! I gave it another try, and thank goodness, because now I love that "wheat meat"! My local Whole Foods makes great vegan seitan fajitas in their hot bar line. :)

J said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one!

I am starting to wonder about eggplant as well. I've only had egg plant twice, once it was rubbery and hard to chew. The second time was in bad, store bought, Baba-Ganouj, and man, ew. Maybe I just haven't had it right, but the texture was bad and the flavor was too strong both times I've had it. But this experience is making me think I should go back and try some of those veggies that I have quickly judged and decided I didn't like.

Except celery, that's just gross....